Vancouver City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the city’s Housing Tax increase from 3% to 5% for the 2023 reference year. The tax increase was proposed by Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who also pioneered the tax increase to 3 percent last year.
Read more: Vancouver raises vacancy tax to 3% by 2021
The resolution passed Wednesday will also see the city more than double the number of audits carried out under the program to 20,000 in 2023. City staff were also instructed to investigate the implications of doubling it to 10 percent again and to evaluate changes to current exemptions to improve justice so that people with legitimate grounds for vacancy are not punished. Trending Stories
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The story goes on under the ad 1:58 Vancouver City Asks County to Examine Empty Store Tax Vancouver City Asks County to Examine Empty Store Tax The staff was also instructed to investigate how the tax could be used to combat short-term real estate leases and how to deal with tax evasion, as well as The mayor’s office says preliminary data from the tax on vacant homes in 2021 showed a reduction in the number of vacant properties in the city and a doubling of revenue for affordable housing initiatives.
Read more: Vancouver Council Votes to Investigate Controversial Showcase License Tax
Vancouver vacancy tax first came into force in 2017 at one percent of a home’s estimated value and tripled to three percent in the 2021 tax year – a key campaign promise in Stuart’s 2018 campaign. The city’s Vacant Housing Tax Annual Report for 2020 found that the number of vacant properties in Vancouver fell by 26 percent between 2017 and 2020. © 2022 Global News, part of Corus Entertainment Inc.
